Putting The “Green” Back Into Greenhouses

March 13th, 2008

The horticulture industry is going green by leaps and bounds. The greenhouse industry has traditionally been one of the largest users of chemicals. Surprising, isn’t it? Now, after decades of producing bedding plants and nursery stock with the use of growth regulators, herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, and, disinfectants, the industry is beginning to see the light! Glory be! It took long enough!

In the mid 1990’s when I moved to chemical free growing methods in our retail and wholesale greenhouse operation, the so called experts of the time, told me I was crazy. They insisted that green plants of quality simply could not be grown without the use of chemicals. I didn’t listen to then. Instead I forged ahead with my dream of turning our operation into a chemical free establishment. And, eventually, we succeeded at growing all of our crops without harming the environment (see the article about this challenge under “Chemical Free” in the Petals, Plants, etc on the sidebar). We even switched to an organic based disinfectant to clean the greenhouses and benches.

A decade later, the horticultural industry has jumped on the band wagon and there is great excitement within the trade about green growing. And there should be. Any grower who is attempting to go chemical free will not have any easy time of it. There will be many set backs, many disappointments. But, in the end, they will be thrilled with the results and wonder why they didn’t switch sooner.

When I shop garden centres (I can’t grow everything I want to) I try to find one that advertises their chemical free growing environment. It is not easy finding a “green” retail garden centre. That’s about to change! The way the trades magazines are talking, within a decade, the chemically dependant growers will be a minority. Good news for everyone.

Posted in Chemical Free, Garden Trends | Comments (0)

Comments are closed.